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The Church

February 9, 2017

I love Jesus. And my love for Jesus is worked out in the church. But our relationship to the church isn’t always easy. Like all relationships worth having, life within the church requires work and commitment. Sometimes that is painful. But we persevere, trusting that in the end beauty and love will prevail.

I saw this poem a while back, and it’s been sitting with me ever since. This seems a good place to record it so I don’t lose it.

How baffling you are, oh Church,
and yet how I love you!
How you have made me suffer,
and yet how much I owe you!
I should like to see you destroyed,
and yet I need your presence.
You have given me so much scandal
and yet you have made me understand sanctity.
I have seen nothing in the world more
devoted to obscurity, more compromised,
more false, and I have found nothing more pure,
more generous, more beautiful.
How often have I wanted to shut the doors
of my soul in your face, and how often
I have prayed to die in the safety of your arms.
No, I cannot free myself from you, because
I am you, although not completely.
And where should I go?